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T-Pain has released a new mixtape. And one of the songs, “Girlfriends” just so happens to feature Aaliyah’s vocals, from an unreleased track she recorded. Now, y’all know people are very sensitive about Baby Girl. And they felt a way about this collaboration. So during a listening party/question and answer session, T-Pain explained how the track came to be. But he also took it a step further saying not only that he couldn’t understand why people were coming for him; but also that because Aaliyah passed away at such a young age, when she, presumably, had so much more to do, people are overly sensitive and even a bit hyperbolic in descriptions of her legacy.

First of all, let me just a lot of people pissed off about that for some reason. I’ve seen people directly say, ‘He doesn’t deserve her vocals.’ And I’m trying to figure out what the fuck did I do. So what happened was they were doing the Aaliyah X album and they came to me for a feature on the album. They had bunch of sessions of her unused tracks. So, instead of being a dick and charging the shit out of them, I was like ‘Yo, just give me one of the sessions’ and they were like ‘Cool. We ain’t gotta pay you right?’ It was just like a swap. I did a song for her album and they gave me one for mine.

In response to people saying they didn’t want to hear auto tune next to Aaliyah’s voice…

People tend to–I don’t know man– I’m not trying to discredit Aaliyah in any kind of way. But you know how sometimes when people die–yeah. You know how somebody’s an asshole their whole life, but when you go to their funeral it’s like ‘This guy was the greatest man that ever walked…’ No, I’m just sayin’!

(Crowd gets crunk asking him what he’s saying…)

No, I’m not saying Aaliyah. But it’s like because she passed, nobody is deserving of being next to her. Nobody’s good enough. Nobody is good enough because she passed. If she was still alive, then everybody would’ve been like, ‘Oh! She’s tryna be Beyoncé!’ If she were still alive right now. But now that she’s passed, it’s like ‘Nobody could be her! Nobody could be her!’ That’s just how I feel. That’s how it goes. And that’s how people are, man. People look for shit to talk about.”

Now, did T-Pain phrase his thoughts in the right way? Absolutely not. But I can’t lie, I’ve had discussions like this and I do think her death had a lot to do with the way people think about Aaliyah and her overall presence and influence in the industry, past and present. And like T-Pain, I’ve wondered what the masses would be saying about Aaliyah if she were still here today. Would people say that no one can or could ever touch her? Would they piss on every rap collaboration and sample? Would she be able to compete with the Beyoncés, Rihannas or even Ciaras of today? Would there be a Rihanna or Ciara? Or would the public generally regard her as a has been? You know our attention span can be very short. Who really knows.

Let us know what you think about T-Pain’s comments? Do you think there’s any merit there or did he just eff up? Tell us why.

 

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